The last Warhol show

Andy Warhol's "The Last Supper," 1986 Acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen 116 x 390 inches. This image is part of "Andy Warhol: The Last Decade" on display at the Brooklyn Museum.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — For an artist who thought of superficiality as a plus, Andy Warhol (1928-1987) plunged into deep and complicated territory when he was in his late 40s.

Time was short. He had been plagued by morbid premonitions ever since Valerie Solanas shot him nearly to death in 1968. They were accurate. He would die from a nursing mishap after routine gall-bladder removal at age 59.

Around 1978 Warhol began making a comeback. He returned to drawing and painting, having moved into other media (film, television, Interview magazine), “Andy Warhol: The Last Decade” at the Brooklyn Museum this summer, that like his silk-screens, Warhol himself was a multiple.

There was the geek/zombie persona he trotted out for the media; the dispassionate observer at parties and clubs; the taskmaster reserved for co-workers and collaborators; and the indulgent, attentive uncle.

A single-minded Andy materialized in the studio. A softer Andy was blindsided by lousy reviews (even if sales were brisk). A sixth Andy, a devout Roman Catholic, existed every Sunday at mass — this one was a secret.

Another Warhol used to visit this borough with longtime assistant and Wagner College undergrad Gerard Malanga. He called the place “the enchanted Island.”

Which was the real Andy? Musicians Lou Reed and John Cale of the Velvet Underground were members of his inner circle in the early days. They quoted him in “Songs for Drella” their biographical 1989 cantata: “It’s just work” their Andy says. “All that matters is the work.”

Warhol liked workaholics, although he also appreciated vapid, lazy, merely beautiful celebrities. Among the videos in the show, be sure to catch the legendary, indefatigable Vogue editor Diana Vreeland discussing her life and times with writer/administrator Henry Geldzhaler.

THE LATE, GREAT WORK

The tall, light-filled Brooklyn Museum galleries are perfect for the big-boned later works, unseen in New York since the Museum of Modern Art retrospective 20 years ago.

The giant, almost gaudy “Rorshach” is in the vestibule, and the scintillating “Shadow” just inside. The sparkle in this lovely, almost minimalist, abstract composition is diamond dust.

Moving into the center of the gallery, one finds most of the late Warhols: The post-Pop replays, the oxidation paintings (produced with urine) and message-driven, ambiguous collaborations with Jean-Michel Basquiat. Also, decorative abstracts and camouflage pictures, the amazingly rich “shadow paintings,” the self-portraits, and the black-and-white pictures that recall his days as an illustrator of unusual elegance.

PARIS TO THE RESCUE

Where did all the enthusiasm come from? It developed in Paris in 1977, from a low point. Joseph D. Ketner II, curator of “Andy Warhol: The Last Decade,” writes “He had grown weary of the society portrait commissions ... the nightly clubbing on the New York social circuit.”

In Paris that summer, Warhol underwent a museum-and-gallery inundation. It apparently recharged his enthusiasm for painting again. (Of course, he had noticed that painting was back in style, via proponents like Julian Schnabel).

Thereafter, he combined silk-screening with painting. It was an efficient way to generate new combinations on a grand scale.

The self-portraits, all based on photographs, are fascinating. Intense, focused and radiant, this Andy is at the top of his game.

In the last room in the show, the commercial Jesus studies and the immense, doubled golden, power-packed inflation of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” the Warhol enigma deepens.

Beside stupendous, is it reverent? Heartfelt? In Roman Catholic thought, the Last Supper is the most important meal ever consumed, the template for the Mass.

The work was a commission; the subject was pre-ordained. Warhol spent a year on the project. If faith had anything to do with it, Warhol wasn’t conceding as much.

He pish-toshed such questions afterwards saying that he was, after all, a commercial artist.